Universal Memories
by Sandman Sam
Summary: We all cling to what we think are important moments in our lives. We take photos, videos, souvenirs. But what happens when the Doctor stumbles upon a maze with things so ancient they aren't thought to exist anymore? What are inside the rooms? What's inside his room? A present for tumblr user TheCreationMonster.
1. Ch 1 The Creation Monster

"Doctor!" Amy shouted from down the tunnel.

"What?" He asked, appearing around a random corner.

"Where did you come from?" Amy asked, startled.

"I'm not sure. Seems to be a maze of some sort, but I think I've just gone in a wobbly circle." He said, glancing about. "Now, you called for something."

"Yeah. I found a door." Amy grabbed the handle, opening the door gently.

The Doctor stepped in first, scanning over everything with his sonic screwdriver.

"What is this place?" Amy asked, following in.

"Very old. And very, very forgotten." The Doctor looked worried for a moment.

"What's this?" Amy lifted a book off the tabel that sat in the middle. "These symbols. I've never seen anything like them.

"Careful with that it's...oh." The Doctor scanned the heading.

"What does it say?"

"I might be a bit rusty but it says, _The Creation_." He answered.

"Of what?"

"_Monster_." He murmured, touching the spine gently.

"Don't you mean plural?" Amy asked, watching him pace around as they sat back inside the Tardis.

"No, I meant what I said. Didn't you ever wonder how the term came about?"

"So they were named after someone?"

"Something." The Doctor corrected. "We shouldn't have brought that with us."

They both glanced at the book.

"Why not?" She asked.

"It contains some of the oldest information ever recorded. Lots of people do all kinds of things for information like that." The Doctor turned away, fiddling with knobs on the control system.

"So we should have left it for someone better or worse to find it?" Amy asked.

"No, I suppose not." He tilted his head, still thinking. "We shouldn't keep it though."

"Should we take it back?" Amy asked, touching the cover of the book.

"No, you're right about one thing. If someone else finds it there's no telling where it will end up." The Doctor let out a little noise of frustration.

"Are you afraid to go back down there or something?"

"Afraid? Of an ancient maze hidden under modern human society potentially filled with dangerous information? No, of course not. The information. A little." He admited, walking about.

"Do you think we should go back down and see what else is there?" She stood, a hand already on her jacket.

The Tardis lurched, whining and whirring loudly. The Doctor lept to the control center, looking like a mother hen, touching differnt levers.

"What's happening?"

"I don't know. You've angered her."

"_I've_ angered _her_? I didn't do anything!" Amy argued.

The Tardis shuddered and quieted, the Doctor looking panicked.

"We've moved." He said a loud. "To where?"

Amy moved to the door, opening it a crack. She pulled back to look at him with surprise.

"You should see this."

He quickly came over, opening the door wider, staring at the expansive room with tunnels circling the whole of it.

"Where do you think we are?" Amy whispered.

"The center of the maze. The heart." The Doctor admitted.

Amy felt quite taken with the cave like room. It seemed bare and dark but when she stepped out she could feel the sink of a soft floor. The Doctor hesitated, touching the door to the Tardis.

"Hello." A voice echoed around the room.

"Who's there?" Amy called.

"We seldom get visitors this deep. How did you make it so far?" The voice asked.

"Come out and I'll show you." The Doctor replied, stepping towards Amy.

"The Doctor? So you've finally come." They turned to see a young woman standing at the enterance of one of the tunnels.

"You know my name?" He asked. "How?"

The woman giggled, touching the wall of the maze. "It's not anything I can really say for you to know how." She looked back at them. "But I can show you."

Her words seemed to spark something, the tunnels filling with light as torches became ablaze with small fires. She stepped from the tunnel, closer to the duo.

"What is this place?" Amy asked.

"Amelia Pond, the Girl Who Waited." The woman smiled softly.

"How could you possibly know that?" The Doctor stepped forward, looking both curious and protective.

"Come along, Doctor. Your room is just this way." She ignored his question, walking to a tunnel across the room.

"What about the book?" Amy blurted. "Should we give it back?"

"Book?" The woman paused, turning around.

"We found a room, with an old book in it. We have it in the Tardis." Amy explained.

"You were allowed to take something out?" The woman seemed intrigued. "Then it must be meant to be in your charge. Care for it well."

The woman turned back to the tunnel, walking ahead. The Doctor followed, Amy keeping stride with him.

"Why did you bring up the book?" He asked.

"I don't know! I was trying to stall. How many times do you travel into a maze only to find someone who knows things about you and says she'll take you to _your room_." Amy said, glancing around. "This whole place feels different. The other hallways seemed normal, quiet. These are more..."

"Alive." The Doctor finished quietly.

The tunnels turned out to be much more complex than the Doctor first assumed, and as they twisted further and further down, he wondered how the woman guiding them knew her way around, if she did at all.

"What exactly are you doing here?" He asked.

"I help the flow of information. Watch over the rooms. Guide those who were sent." She explained.

"Sent? What about people who just, oh I don't know, stumble in." He pushed.

"No one just stumbles in, Doctor." She smiled. "There's always a reason."

"Is there now?" He murmured softly. "So how long have you been here?"

"Oh, I don't really keep track of that. Awhile, I suppose." She shrugged.

"And you've seen all the rooms?" The Doctor asked.

"Mm, most, I would think. New ones come every so often, and some of the oldest disappear for a while." She mused.

"Do you hear that?" The Doctor turned to Amy. "Whole rooms, appearing and disappearing!"

"Why do you sound excited by that?" Amy asked.

"Because it's new, new things are always interesting." The Doctor grinned.

"Your door, Doctor." They both stopped short to see the woman gesturing at a faded blue door.

Something about the markings around the door made the Doctor reach out and touch them.

"Interesting...and sometimes, not." Amy barely caught his words.

"You don't have to go in." The woman offered. "I can take you back to the center."

"You said no one comes here on accident. Always sent." The Doctor stroked the door, the familiar blue under his fingertips.

"I did." She agreed.

He reached for the handle and paused, glancing at the woman.

"What's in here?" He asked.

"It's your room, Doctor, only you can really say." She nodded to the door.

"Geronimo." He said, opening the door and stepping in.


	2. Ch 2 The Doctor's Room

The door opened with a gentle whine, like it hadn't been opened in a long while. The Doctor stepped in with a quiet hesitance, but Amy saw his worry. The room looked fairly undecorated, with tall, white walls, and eleven chairs placed in a spiral in the middle.

"For a man with a million gadgets you'd have a room that was a bit more...lively." Amy teased.

"You just have to say your name. The _decorations_ in this room are voice activated." The woman said from the doorway.

The doctor moved to the eleventh chair and touched the back, glancing at Amy who was circling the room.

"Why?" He asked.

"Doctor-" Amy turned to ask him a question but the walls suddenly lit up and then dimmed into a revolving image of the universe. "Whoa."

"Stars. Millions of them." The Doctor touched the nearest wall and the universe disappeared to show a reel of memories he recognized from his previous regenerations.

"How does it able to show these?" He looked at the woman.

"They're your memories, aren't they?" She asked.

"Yes. In my different lives, but it doesn't make sense. How does it have copies of my memories?" He asked her, pointing to the wall.

"It's your room, Doctor. It's you, your lives, and your memories. All the ways you've touched the universe and the flow of time. It's in here, recorded in the traditional Galifreyin way. All you have to do is focus and you could see it all, each moment." She explained.

"But why show me now?" The Doctor asked.

"Is there something you need to see?" Amy spoke up.

"I...I don't believe so. What memory could I possibly need to come all this way to see?" He asked.

"Well, what if you're not the only one who should see it?" The woman offered.

"You mean me." It wasn't a question, Amy just looked from her to the wall, looking at the flickering memories. "Why are there eleven chairs, Doctor?"

"Because that's how many lives I've had." The Doctor admitted, realizing there is quite a bit that perhaps Amy doesn't know.

"You mean like your regeneration?" Amy asked.

"Yes. Each life, I have a different face, a different voice, a bit of a different personality. I learn new things, I meet new people, I love, I lose, I die. Again and again." The Doctor touched each chair as he walked, following the spiral to the first chair.

"You've never told me about any of the other companions." Amy wandered closer to the chairs, his expression confused. "I figured you couldn't have spent over a thousand years by yourself. It just didn't seem like you."

"They were all a different life for me. Different companions, all special in their own way. I never wanted you to feel like you had to compare yourself to any of them." He admitted.

"Well, that would be my choice, now wouldn't it?" Amy linked arms with him, patting his arm. "Will you show me some of them?"

The corners of his mouth twitched. Where should he start?

"There were a lot of women." Amy mused.

"What's that supposed to mean?" The Doctor asked, as they both stretched out in the chairs, watching the memories glide across the walls.

"Nothing really," She smirked. "And why didn't you ever mention Jack?"

"Oh, please." He rolled his eyes. "The two of you together would be more of a handful than I'd care to measure."

"I'm not saying it like that. I just think it's funny is all." Amy shrugged.

"Wait a moment, where is the woman from earlier?" He suddenly sat up, looking at the empty doorway.

"I didn't even hear her leave." Amy admitted, watching him walk to the door. "Are you going to go look for her?"

"She said no one comes here by accident, and that maybe you needed to see who I was. But why? Why show you all of my life? Why is it important?" He asked.

"Well, I don't regret it. I always just saw you as the raggedy man. The man in the box. But you've been a lot more than that for a lot of people." Amy said a loud.

"Come along, I have a few more questions for her." He waved, and with a small sigh, Amy followed him.

They both took one last glance about the room before they exited, the walls fading back to their previous white.

"Excuse us? Hello?" The Doctor called down the hallways, trying to find their way back to the center.

"Are you lost again, Doctor?" The woman's voice made them turn around, seeing her come from around the corner.

"You left." He said.

"I have many rooms to attend to. I thought you alright on your own for a few moments." She shrugged.

"Do you control this place?" He asked.

"Control? Heaven's no." She laughed.

"So what do you do, exactly?" He pushed.

"I see that the rooms are in order, that anyone who comes is seen to, and that the general order of the tunnels are kept." She explained without pause.

"So you were right, the tunnels are sort of alive." Amy spoke up.

"In their own way yes, you could say that." She nodded.

"But why does this place exist?" He sounded almost frustrated.

"Why does anything exist, Doctor? Because it serves a purpose in the grand scheme of things." She smiled maternally. "Are you finished with your room? Or perhaps there is something else you would like to see?"

"Wait. Before we go any further, do you have a name?" He asked.

"Of course I have a name." She laughed.

"What is it?" Amy asked, clearly trying to speed there banter along.

"Jordan, Jordan Livingston." She smiled.


End file.
